Politics Professor to Study Civil Society and Democratic Politics in the Philippines
Fifteen years after receiving a Fulbright grant as a student to study in South Korea, Catholic University Politics Professor Andrew Yeo will travel to the Philippines on a Fulbright faculty research grant.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced that Yeo had received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to conduct research in the Philippines. Yeo will be affiliated with the Department of Political Science at the University of the Philippines-Diliman as part of a project exploring how international factors influence civil society and democracy in the Philippines and in Asia more broadly.
Yeo is one of more than 800 U.S. citizens who will teach, conduct research, and/or provide expertise abroad for the 2019-2020 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as record of service and demonstrated leadership in their respective fields.
“My research in the Philippines will allow me to conduct comparative studies between the Philippines and South Korea,” Yeo said. “Both countries share similarities in their political development, particularly in relation to their close ties to the United States and in their transition from dictatorship to democracy in the 1980s. I am most grateful to the University and Dean Aaron Dominguez for allowing me to take a leave to pursue research which will ultimately improve our understanding of civil society and democracy in Asia.”
Yeo is a professor of international relations and director of the Asian Studies program. He is a frequent commentator in the media on topics relating to international relations and Asia and North Korea in particular. He is the author of Asia’s Regional Architecture: Alliances and Institutions in the Pacific Century (Stanford University Press, 2019), North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks (Cambridge University Press, 2018, with D. Chubb); Living in an Age of Mistrust: An Interdisciplinary Study of Declining Trust and How to Get it Back (Routledge Press, 2017, with M. Green); and Activists, Alliances, and Anti-U.S. Base Protests (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program and is designed to build lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Fulbright Program is funded through an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the Program, which operates in more than 160 countries worldwide.
Fulbright scholars address critical global challenges in all disciplines, while building relationships, knowledge, and leadership in support of the long-term interests of the United States. Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields, including 59 who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, 84 who have received Pulitzer Prizes, and 37 who have served as a head of state or government.
In addition to Professor Yeo, three students from Catholic University — two undergraduates and one graduate student — will study abroad thanks to Fulbright grants.
“These four Fulbright scholars show the strength of scholarship and education in the School of Arts and Sciences,” said Aaron Dominguez, dean of the school. “This just shows that we are a world-class Catholic research university.”